


Twenty-One To Zip (Doctor, Doctor, Gimme The News)

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Image, Chubby Dean Winchester, Community: chubwinchesters, Community: hc_bingo, Community: kink_bingo, Emotionally Repressed, Endearments, Exhibitionism, Fat Character, Fat Shaming, Feedism, Food Issues, Food Kink, Humiliation, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, In Public, Kink Shaming, Kink Without Plot, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Medical Kink, Name-Calling, Names, Pining, Repression, Shame, Situational Humiliation, Sub!Dean, Supernatural AU: Doctor Sexy MD, Teasing, Verbal Humiliation, Weight Gain, chubby!kink, fat appreciation, past Dean/Lisa - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 19:06:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor Dean Winchester has pneumonia, but can't write his own prescription. Doctor Sexy happens to be one of the physicians on call this morning, and he just can't make this any easier for his favorite junior Attending. Dean wouldn't really like it if he did, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-One To Zip (Doctor, Doctor, Gimme The News)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chubchester](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=chubchester).



> This was written, first and foremost, for lj user ~chubchester, as a way, WAY belated part of the ~chubwinchesters exchange meme. It was also written using [this prompt](http://chubwinchesters.livejournal.com/113687.html?thread=1769495#t1769495) from the latest request anything meme (also over at ): _Anything goes but I'd love to see Dr. Sexy getting on doctor Dean's case for his weight or patient Dean being examined by Dr. Sexy_. …Or both, in this case.
> 
> I also tried to fit in as many things as I could off of ~chubchesters favorite kinks list, since I wound up writing a prompt other than one of their three prompts. This isn't what I thought I was going to write, and the companion piece to it is currently at a standstill, but… for all it's sort of unexpected and not one of your requests, ~chubchester, I hope that you like it. ♥
> 
> Other prompts used here are: "humiliation (verbal)" and "humiliation (situational) for kink_bingo; the postage stamp of, "nightmares," "pneumonia," "torture," and "WILD CARD" for hc_bingo (with the wild card prompt being, "body image issues"); and, "stolen" for the 2012 summer bingo at ~chubwinchesters (interpreting it as, "stolen moments").

For all he understands the problems with medical professionals writing prescriptions for themselves, Doctor Dean Winchester can't help thinking that the rules should be suspended in some cases. Like, for instance, if you need to get a round of antibiotics and don't want your colleagues to stick their noses into your purported diet. Especially in cases like Dean's, where the emphasis in that sentence is definitely on _purported_.

It's ten in the morning, ten days after his thirty-sixth birthday, and Dean's sitting on one of the Seattle Mercy Hospital exam tables, waiting for one of his colleagues to swoop in and write him a prescription for some antibiotics. There are innumerable places that he'd rather be. On the moon without a spacesuit. The bottom of the Marianas Trench with no way out, getting crushed under all the water pressure. Lost in the mountains with a yeti on the loose. Camp Crystal Lake on Friday the thirteenth.

Come to think, Hell's supposed to have lovely weather this time of year. Regardless of climate, the decor would be a significant improvement on this closed-in, sterile little room, with its off-white walls and its ugly, laminated posters preaching the health risks faced by overweight people.

Seriously, anywhere but here would be just freaking lovely by Dean. Anywhere but his workplace's emergency clinic, down with a case of pneumonia. Staring at a scale for the first time in way too long. Thanking his lucky stars that Nurse McClellan didn't make him get up on it after taking Dean's chest x-ray and a vial of his blood, then showing him in here. Cindy only gave Dean a sympathetic smile and said that someone would be with him shortly. Because she's _not_ an awful fucking busybody and (probably) hasn't gotten in on the betting pool about how much weight Dean's put on lately, exactly how fat he's let himself get this time.

Chances are, though? Dean won't be nearly so lucky with one of the other doctors. About the only one in the whole hospital who might not make him weigh in—force him to confirm that he's put on weight and to deal with exactly how much—is his old friend, Meg Masters (internal medicine, like Dean). Who, bless Dean's luck right in the fucking heart, is on her honeymoon until sometime next week. She and Ms. Talbot from the Board of Directors make a pretty—if snarky to the point of cruelty—couple, but still, Dean could just scream at Meg for leaving right when he gets freaking sick.

Or at least, he could yell her sister, Ruby, for showing up to the wedding with the germs that she kindly passed on to Dean. Either way: he could yell at one of them, even though they don't deserve it.

Even worse, he's in his pajamas instead of his nice, roomy scrubs, and he doesn't need the mirror on the back of the door to remind him of how his clothing highlights exactly _why_ he doesn't want to be here. Without constantly glancing over at his reflection, or looking down at his lap, Dean's aware of how it's finally happened: he's even outgrown his chubby clothes, made himself start cursing the fact that he got rid of all his fat clothes in his last year of college, when he got his weight back down from the low two-forties.

He watches his reflection, sees how tight his grey t-shirt's gotten in the past six (almost seven) months, how it's riding up on his softer, rounder stomach. Even resting underneath his belly's lower curve, his pants' elastic waistband stretches to its limit and cuts hard into his soft flesh. The plaid fabric clings to Dean's thighs and ass, and he can't even begin to think about zipping up his old Kripke College hoodie. If he could get the two sides of it to meet and put the zipper's lead in place without sucking in his gut—seems like a pretty big if—he'd bust the thing open in ten seconds, flat.

Granted, Dean hasn't tried this, and his hoodie's probably been through worse than his current weight (whatever it is), but he's sure that he's right. To make matters worse? This stupid thing fit him fine almost seven months ago. It was even sort of baggy, which made sense. Dating a yoga instructor came with a bunch of perks Dean hadn't known about. He'd slimmed down, toned up his whole body, gotten _so close_ to a thirty-inch waist. Even without getting there, he was thinner than he'd been since high school—not to mention more flexible. He had to work on that, just to keep up with Lisa. In the gym as well as in the bedroom.

But, almost seven months ago, Dean and Lisa broke up after being together for four years and engaged for six months. Dean probably shouldn't still be upset about losing her or how happy she is now with some writer chick named Becky. Especially not when it was a mutual agreement that they'd fallen out of love—but he can't remember the last time he really got upset about Lisa or how they were only eight months out from getting married. He's even happy for her and Becky, these days.

On the other hand, though? The side-effects of the break-up have been a waking goddamn nightmare. One that Dean's still carrying around with him and could probably still escape, if he'd just put his mind to it. Which he really, _really_ hasn't. In the slightest. At all.

Soon after the break-up, Dean found himself crashing with his best friend, Cas Milton (pediatric surgeon), because Lisa literally had nowhere else to go but their shared apartment. Not that Dean minded living with Cas—he couldn't ask for a better friend—but Cas has the metabolism of a hummingbird. He also doesn't have the same ideas about food that Dean and Lisa shared because what does it matter if he keeps his house stocked with good food _and_ junk? He burns it right off and always has.

Dean's not blessed with that superpower, and he didn't get a will of steel either. So, soon enough after moving in with him, the diet and exercise plan that had kept Dean's often problematic weight from getting too out-of-control since his last year of undergrad? Fell completely by the wayside. Misery led to comfort-eating, something Cas more than enabled because, as Dean's come to find out, Cas worries that Dean's restrictive, hierarchical attitude about food could breed an eating disorder. Dean disagrees, but he also didn't want his friend to worry about him, so he ate. More than he ever needed to, not even to prove for Cas that really, he's fine.

And so, Dean's ballooned. At first, it was just a little bit of pudge along his hips and waist. Nothing to write home about—or, anyway, Dean could still keep it mostly hidden, so he didn't think much of it. His weight's never been exactly stable, even with his Lifestyle Management StratagemTM, and he's always bounced back from getting a little chubby. Now, though? He probably passed, "a little chubby" a pant size-and-a-half ago. He's not huge yet, but Dean sure as Hell _feels_ pretty fat.

Around his and Lisa's break-up, Dean weighed in around one-seventy, maybe as much as one-seventy-five—and he'd held that for six months, which was eons for him. Now, he hasn't seen the business end of a scale since the dial hovered closer to one-ninety. Denying the weight problem hasn't made it go away—he's pretty sure that his paunch would have a few things to say on the subject—but at least ignoring the ever-increasing numbers made it easier for Dean to keep ordering extra-large, full-fat lattes with extra flavor shots at Seattle Mercy's on-campus Starbucks.

And to keep eating all the pastas, cookies, ice cream, extra helpings, and chocolate chip muffins he'd systematically denied himself since college (after all: they tasted good, they made him feel better, and they got Cas to stop worrying). And to eventually just stop complaining about Cas's insistence on playing mother hen, right down to offering to pack Dean lunches. Never mind how much he's skimped on the gym because no, really, he absolutely needed to be at work instead.

And they all seemed like such little things, at the time, but as Dean's told he-has-no-clue-how-many patients, little things add up. Excuses mount. Tomorrow never comes and promises don't get made good on, and if Dean has to haul his fat, feverish, congested ass up onto the scale in front of one of his coworkers, he swears to fucking God, he might just cry.

He nearly does when the door opens and he sees who's on the other side. Dean can't stop himself from gasping—or from doubling over in a coughing fit when he does—or from shuffling back until he hits the wall. Every single instinct he has says to run for his car, go back to his apartment, and suffer this in silence. Throw DayQuil, Emgergen-C, and chicken soup at his illness until it clears up on its own, even if he knows how loudly Cas would object to Dean doing that and how much of a bad idea it is.

Because it'd suck, and take a while, but it'd be a Hell of a lot better than staring up into the chiseled jaw, cold brown eyes, and three-day stubble of his superior and _fucking former boss_ : Doctor James Sexy, MD, Residency Director and Senior Attending Physician of Internal Medicine.

*******

James pauses in the doorway and drags his eyes all up and down Dean's frame. Huffs in amusement at the sight before him. Smirks at Dean far too pleasantly as he shuts the door behind him and peruses Dean's chart, flips through the file with the reports from nine years of annual physicals. Dean squirms just from watching him linger there, with his nose all up in Dean's records. He stares at his lap—at the soft, squishy _thing_ that bulges out from his middle and nudges against his thicker thighs. 

He tries to keep quiet and tug his shirt down over his pudgy stomach, besides. It's useless, and Dean knows that—he's definitely outgrown this shirt but at least he has to _try_ covering up. His skin crawls, just from the clicking of James's cowboy boots on the linoleum, and he fusses with his shirt's strained hem. Tangles his fingers up in it and curses everything. Of course he has to put up with this complicated mess of shit when he needs to be at home, getting well again so he can _come to work_ —not to mention get back to work at slimming down again.

Of course one of the doctors on-call right now would be: a. the one who's made Dean feel like a stuttering, hard-crushing, weak-in-the-knees and clogged-in-the-throat fourteen-year-old since Dean's first day here as an intern; and b. the one who's shown the most interest in Dean's growing weight problem. Arched his eyebrows when Dean's tried to eat a muffin or a cookie. Snorted any time he overheard one of Dean's coffee orders. Made more snide comments and shitty puns than Dean's bothered keeping track of—he's made plenty of them in private, but he's not shy about calling Dean names like _Delta Burke_ or _Mia Tyler_ in public.

Not like this is anything especially new or novel. According to Meg, their ex-boss goes at Dean like a kids pulling on each other's pigtails, just more emotionally constipated, the way Lisa correctly accused Dean of being. Which is possibly the most accurate statement Dean's ever heard about James, save his last name. If Dean had pigtails in the first place, James would probably tug them right off his head and still wouldn't admit that maybe, just maybe, he'd be into Dean's occasional fantasies of getting bent over his desk.

Not that any of that really _helps_ —the fact that James might be harboring a crush, the fact that they've been here before and it shouldn't be anything new. Sure, James has made an issue of Dean's weight already, during Dean's myriad rounds of yo-yo dieting—but this time? It's been so much worse. Probably because, this time, Dean hasn't yet bounced back from letting himself get chunky. A few days of trying to diet, here and there, but they all end in the same place: Cas's kitchen table. Locked in a staring match while Cas makes him choke down a heaping plate of lasagna or whatever he's made for dinner; or else alone and stuffing himself with something even worse than Cas would make.

Since Dean's started getting fat again, all James has done has seemed intent on making Dean want to crawl in a hole and hide until he's got his skinny body back. Or at least until he stops _wanting_ James to insult him so badly. Until he stops feeling compelled to wear scrubs a size too small, in the hopes that James will say something about it in front of Meg, or better yet, in front of Dean's interns. Until he stops deliberately bringing enormous muffins, cookies, or cupcakes with him from the cafeteria, then leaning against the nearest desk, unwrapping whatever prize he has today and slowly devouring it, making eyes at James and waiting for him to make good on the ever-present threat of shaming Dean.

Which is the whole problem, because _worse_ with James means _better_ for Dean. Which makes things _even worse_ because he _shouldn't_ get himself off to shit like this. Seriously. He shouldn't be all but outright flirting with someone he still thinks of as his _boss_ , for one thing. Worse than that, Dean shouldn't get off on his weight or on eating shit that's bad for him. Not when he needs to get back on his diet, get back to the gym, and get himself back on track. Not when, yeah, sure, fine, Dean's _supposed_ to feel ashamed of gaining weight and getting fat again, of his plump, round belly and his plush hips—but only so he'll get his act together and lose the lot already. Not because he maybe kind of likes pinching and prodding at his fat.

Everything's so much worse because Dean's so obviously imagining things, anyway. Limning them significance that they don't really have. There's no way that some stud like James Tobias Sexy, MD, would be into Dean when he looks like he stole the cookies from the cookie jar, ate them, and then ate the jar, too.

Never mind how it's _dangerous_ to get the way Dean does over James's maybe-a-crush. To get all blushing and lustful and stammering and fussy and stupid. They have to work together well or else _patients will die_ —and no matter how many times Dean reminds himself of that, he apparently hasn't quite gotten it through his head. He still gets himself off to fantasies of James dressing him down over something—anything—and only coming when he imagines James going at his weight. Asking if he really needs that extra trip to the vending machine, Carnie Wilson, because judging from Dean's profile, James is thinking that he ought to reconsider. You know, unless he likes being a bloated, flabby little land-whale.

Which Dean doesn't. At all. Likewise, he's totally not dragging his feet on getting his weight problem under control because he hates measuring food, and counting calories, and knowing that there's an infinite number of things that he can't eat or else he'll have a hard time stopping. Losing control has no appeal whatsoever, neither does the thought of staying fat and not dieting ever again. Because that would be even weirder than all the times he ever asked Lisa to call him names in bed, or all the times he wanted her to smack him around and dominate him, shove his face into the mattress and make him beg.

Even if Lisa never thought Dean's desires were too strange or too much for her, even if she made good on all of them and more, Dean's pretty sure that they're actually weird as fuck. That maybe she was just lying to make him feel better about being such a freak. And since he can't just turn his desires off, Dean at least needs to get to the other side of this visit and drop the weight. He needs to stop convincing himself that there's any hope for him and James until he's skinny. After all: skinny people have more of a license to be freaks.

*******

(Un)fortunately for Dean and his resolve not to make this weird? When he finally gets around to talking, James Sexy's in fucking stunning form.

"Well, well, well," he says with a faux-pensive sigh. "What do we have here, Nancy? Fever, coughing and chest pain, chills and nausea, shortness of breath, bloody sputum… Now, I know we might not have the fancy chest x-ray yet, but let's play doctor. Or operate like it's any normal work day, in your case. How would _you_ diagnose this malady, Doctor Winchester?"

Jesus Fucking Christ, he would have to go right for Dean's intelligence and call it _playing doctor_. Why can nothing in Dean's life ever go right? It's bad enough that he has to answer to James today at all. But he's never managed to desensitize himself to getting picked on like this; he's barely managed to find ways of keeping himself on the right side of the Appropriate Employee Conduct line. Even after almost ten years of working at Seattle Mercy, spending so much of that time around Doctor Sexy, Dean still feels something white-hot drop and spill through the deepest pit of his belly.

Still feels his insides bristling under James scrutinizing glare, then start tying themselves up in knots. Fuck Dean's life. This isn't even as good-but-bad as James can get and he already wants to give up and beg James for more. There's basically no way he can get out of this visit without something going wrong. The only question left is _how_ Dean's life will screw itself up this time. What, exactly, will decide to blow up in his face. Or maybe the question is how Dean will screw his own life up this time; how he'll blow up something so theoretically simple as getting a prescription.

But, until then, he has to do his best to keep this from happening. So, Dean sighs, rolls his eyes, and has to bury another round of coughing in the crook of his elbow—just like burying the hot, pressing urge to bare his neck, lick Doctor Sexy's filthy boots, and beg him to call Dean a tubby little bitch. Preferably, _his_ tubby little bitch, but Dean's more than willing to work for that distinction. It's probably a title that he has to earn—maybe by keeping his wits about him and giving James his opinion on a diagnosis.

"Pneumonia," he huffs. Just glancing up at James— _Doctor Sexy_ , Dean guesses, since he's on the clock right now—makes Dean's cheeks flush pink. Just meeting his eyes when he tosses out a derisive chuckle? Makes him clench his thighs together as a chill shocks up his back. "That'd be my guess, anyway. It's pretty classic presentation. Like, textbook. And considering how it's knocked me out of work for three days already and how I had a Z-pack back around Christmas, I'd recommend a course of amoxicillin or doxycycline."

"That was a trick question, Chloe," James retorts, sing-songs without missing a beat, prodding the tip of Dean's nose with his pen. "Now, if we knew for sure whether or not you actually _had_ pneumonia, I'd agree with you, buuuut…" He _tsks_ at Dean, taps the pen on Dean's chart, and Dean only wishes that Doctor Sexy were tapping him with the thing instead. "We can't be certain of anything without your chest x-ray, a look at your blood cultures—I mean, it _could_ be standard pneumonia, but there are so many other potential diagnoses too? Or we could do a full physical exam. Now, considering the backups in the lab and radiology, what would _you_ recommend?"

Dean doesn't even try to stop himself from groaning—why the fuck does James have to be such a tease. "A full physical exam, _Doctor_ ," he spits on the last word, not out of malice as much as he's trying to bait Doctor Sexy. Trying to tell him, _Come on already, Doctor Jack-Ass—I know you just want to rip into me for blubbering out like I have and make me promise to be a good boy and get on a diet already. So how about you stop pussy-footing around and get to it so I can head for the pharmacy and go home, huh_. "I think I'm about due for one, anyway, so let's just handle the whole thing now."

"You're a little _over_ due for it, actually. But no matter and nothing to write home about, right?" James smirks again and squeezes Dean's shoulder a bit too tightly, pinching at Dean's fat—Dean can't help blushing because _James is touching him_ and probably about to make some slick-ass comment. He arches his eyebrows at Dean like he's saying, _who, me? tease you? no, no, get out of here, I surely wouldn't_. "At least the clinic's pretty vacant, right now. I think Doctor Blake and Doctor Roberts can handle the rest of the whiny sick people for us. Can't they, Mariah?"

Dean supposes that they can, yeah. Sarah and Cara are good doctors after all, more than competent enough to take care of the patients. He tries to play this coy—or as coy as he can get under the circumstances. Like he doesn't care in the slightest. Like this isn't something he's thought about and got off to hundreds of times before. Like he doesn't want to scream about how James just wasted a perfectly good opportunity to insult him for his weight, and like it's not remotely possible that Dean will fuck something up during this exam, and like he's not liable to do so in a way that decidedly isn't Appropriate Employee Conduct.

Like Dean hasn't wanted James's hands all over him like this since he was a little baby intern. It's just that, in his all his fantasies? He's been slender—maybe lithe would be a better word; he's been thin and toned, at any rate—and he hasn't been trembling at the thought of James rubbing his calluses all over Dean's new curves. Dragging his fingers down the length of Dean's red, angry stretch marks, then digging his nails into one of the rolls of flab on Dean's stomach. He definitely hasn't been trembling with anything resembling a desire to get fucked until he screams.

Because again? That would be _weird_ and _counterintuitive_ and thoroughly unproductive to the whole "losing weight, and getting healthy, and maybe being desirable enough for James" thing.

And James just sighs, glancing down at Dean's chart and blissfully oblivious to the gears turning in Dean's head. "You know," he says, "I love her as a person and all… but Cindy can really cut corners, when she puts her mind to it. Looking over these figures of hers… Your height and temperature, I'll believe, but there's no way that your blood pressure can be _this_ high—not even with the infection you're nursing. And I notice that she forgot to take down your weight?"

"Well, I mean… We don't really have to look at that, do we?" Nuns. Plane crashes. Meg's habit of abbreviating _Star Trek_ to ST—Dean has to find the worst, least sexy thing he can think of, because watching James while trying to talk about this? Is driving him _up the fucking wall_. "Like… it's not really relevant to the whole real reason I'm here, is it?"

"Wrong again, _Karen_." James's sing-songing wouldn't be insulting from anybody else. Anybody else would drawl out _Karen_ the way that he does because it's a girl's name and Dean is a man and har dee fucking har aren't they so clever—but from James? It sets Dean's stomach reeling and trying to turn itself inside out. Dean inhales sharply, doubles over and hacks into his elbow again, and doesn't even try to sit up straight once he's stopped. Sitting like this folds his stomach up on itself, shows off all of his fleshy rolls—which makes the hairs on the back of Dean's neck stand up all the more.

Because Dean thought he loved Led Zeppelin. He _thought_ he loved Star Trek and that he was a super-fan of Kurt Vonnegut's—and then he met James. Then he met how much James fucking loves The Carpenters. Learned how James can't help humming a few bars of "Superstar," "Goodbye To Love," or "(They Long To Be) Close To You" every time he gets a patient named Karen or Richard.

So it's finally starting, Dean's finally getting what he's wanted this whole time, and James is trying to make sure that Dean's keeping up—there's no way that he isn't teasing Dean with this, not after some of his other celebrity nicknames. There's no way he isn't making a subtle point out of Dean's size. Mocking his weight in a way that has just enough plausible deniability to sneak past anybody else, that Dean might even be imagining… because he _could_ mean any Karen, really?

But it's James, so he doesn't. And anyway, Dean's cock twitches and his stomach feels like it's about to plummet out of him. Thankfully, he doesn't get hard (there'd be no way to hide it, in these pants), but he can hardly make out what James is saying, not past the desire for James to call him _Karen_ again, or maybe even cut to the chase and call out his size with some proper insult. Blah blah, something about Dean's history of yo-yo dieting and the need for covering all the bases. Yadda yadda, some other thing about the proper medication dosages, which James is totally pulling out of his ass, besides—at least, it's bullshit.

"Come on, now, Olivia…" He says—and Dean only hears him because of the hand that drops onto his belly, squeezes the topmost of Dean's rolls. "Last year's physical says you weighed in at one-seventy-seven. Think you've gotten a _bit_ bigger since then, hmmm? Even making allowances for all the pie I _know_ that you indulge in, come the holidays, and all of those cupcakes you've been choking down lately… I'm not sure you can really hide behind the broad side of a barn anymore, much less that good old, _I'm just bloated, it's just a few pounds_ excuse."

For a moment, James lets up on Dean's stomach. Brushes the back of his hand over Dean's curves and further down. Nudges Dean's hem up ever-so-slightly more and grips onto the flab on Dean's hip—wrapping his palm over the side of Dean's muffin-top and digging his fingers into Dean's flesh. And before he says anything more, he keeps them there for a long moment, jostles Dean's flab and makes his whole stomach shake. Dean whines—scrunches up his face and just squirms under James's hold, under his gaze—and it makes his insides writhe all the more when he can't tell if he's getting precious because James is touching him at all, or because James is giving him what he wants.

"See, to me? This feels like a _bit_ more than your _usual_ holiday pie-paunch, Dean," he tells him, pouting ever so slightly, knotting up his brow in something that looks like concern. Breaking out the soft voice that he usually saves for being unexpectedly nice to the interns. "And the shortness of breath could be the pneumonia, but if it sticks around? You're playing with fire, if you don't let us check this out, you know. It could get worse. You know that. Could even be that something's doing this _to_ you… making you put on so much weight, so quickly…"

Another move to nudge up Dean's shirt—Dean freezes, feeling something warm and rough kneading into his fat, and… oh, _God_. …Those are definitely James's fingers, and they are definitely brushing over Dean's skin. Dean has to bite his lip just to keep from shuddering as James's fingers hit one of his stretch-marks, as James scrapes a nail up and down the length of it. There's a delicacy underneath it all—James lets a cold smirk flash across his face, digs his nail into Dean's scar and manages to make it hurt—but he never manages to shake this weird, uncertain look. This glint in his eye that seems to ask if any of this isn't okay.

Dean recognizes it because he's seen it before. With Lisa, when he asked her to hit him. He doesn't want to say yes aloud or acknowledge whatever it is they're doing—that might break the spell, bring reality back into things and remind Dean, irrevocably, that it's all in his fucking head. That James would never because he has standards.

"Please get on the scale, Nancy?" James says with a sigh, still stroking-but-scratching. Despite the words, there's not even a pretense of begging here. It's not a request that he's giving Dean; it's an order that James is dressing up for fun, maybe to see if he and Dean are on the same page. "If you don't want to do it for your own tubby ass's sake, then at least put my mind at ease. Strictly as your physician. I don't want to do anything without knowing what, exactly, we're dealing with here."

Dean heaves a sigh. Gets partway to moaning. Drags the noise of protest up from the pit of his chest—and he only does so because he's twisting and turning and impossibly squirming on the inside. Because as he hefts himself off the exam table and thuds onto the floor, he knocks into James, gets to feel his pudgy middle knocking into James's abs; gets to feel how soft he is against James's hard muscle. Because the scale against the wall is one of the older ones with the sliding weights—and the upper weight limit of two-hundred-fifty pounds. Dean hesitates before the scale and slides out of his sneakers, nudges his toes up against the platform, takes a deep breath and holds it as he finally steps on. 

The platform cracks down into place. The whole scale seems to groan beneath Dean's feet. And Dean doesn't take his eyes off of James's fingers as they deftly knock the weights around—he could look somewhere else, but watching this instead makes his stomach get going on a round of hot, sick, flip-flopping gymnastics. James knocks the weights up to two-hundred pounds, at first. Experimenting, maybe trying to tease Dean somewhat because there's no way he expects the scale to even out. Not while he's wearing _that_ smirk—which, in turn, makes Dean swallow thickly and feel his saliva sticking to the inside of his throat. It's no better for him when James nudges the weights up to two-ten: the scale still doesn't even out and it's the same story at two-twenty, and two-thirty, two-forty…

Each tick of the weight into place makes the knot in Dean's stomach get worse and worse. His cheeks start turning pink. The blush doesn't stay there, either, but spills out, seeping down like an oil spill, like it wants to reach his toes. The back of his neck is absolutely burning by the time James clicks the weight down to its final place—two-hundred-fifty freaking pounds—and Dean could catch fire when the scale still doesn't even out. It's still tilting, if only slightly. Dean gapes at it, genuinely so at that—sure, some parts of him writhe from the thought of James seeing just how much weight Dean's put on, maybe even likes this in the same way Dean does (or likes humiliating Dean, at least)—but more than that? Dean can't believe he's put on this much weight.

He's never considered that he's gotten _this_ big. Not even taking into account how his chubby clothes don't fit him anymore. Dean can run the numbers in his head—assuming he weighed one-seventy on the day he moved out of Lisa's, he's put on at least eighty pounds since then. And he's got at least ten on his former highest weight. And his blush gets hotter, darker as he thinks about that fact—his insides writhe at wondering just how fat he's really gotten—Dean hears James's low whistle and feels one of his hands trailing along Dean's pudgy waistline. Vaguely, he gets that James is echoing his previous sentiments—Dean has _definitely_ put on a _little_ more than his usual holiday pie-paunch—but nothing really registers until James yanks Dean's hoodie off, grips onto his wrist, starts dragging him down the hall.

They don't stop until they reach Ernie, the hospital's biggest scale and usually reserved for Seattle Mercy's bariatric clinic and their patients. Dean doesn't remember why he and Meg named the scale Ernie, but he probably wouldn't be able to give someone his phone number right now. Everything in his head whites out as he blushes even hotter, stares down at Ernie's enormous platform, at the label on his readout that lists his maximum capacity: eight-hundred pounds. And James doesn't wait for Dean to process anything. He splays a hand over the small of Dean's back—sinks his fingers into Dean's flesh for just a moment—and shoves Dean up onto Ernie with a huff. Snarks that he sure hopes Ernie can handle all this flab, _Karen_.

The verdict doesn't get any kind of close to how much weight Ernie can hold—Dean even sighs in relief as he blinks down at the black digital numbers spelling out _255_. He heaves another one as James reads it out for him, takes the chance and more than a few: _Well, well, well. Two-hundred and fifty-five pounds, Nancy. So much for all that talk about, "oh, it's just a couple pounds," and, "oh, I'm getting on a diet after New Year's." It's been six weeks and you know what I think?_ —He pauses the string of insults to reach around and smack Dean on the gut. Dean gasps from the force of the impact, whines as he watches all of his fat trembling, and before his head can even try to clear, James comes back to finish up his rant— _I think the diet's running later than you were to this physical_.

Of course, it's still dizzying. He's still put on _eighty-five goddamn pounds_ —gained well over ten pounds a month since the break-up and put on fifteen from his former highest weight. Dean's head still spins from these facts. But Dean can't help the warm rush of relief that floods through him, makes him sigh another time. Letting his belly flop forward even further, strain against his t-shirt all the more, because at least he hasn't maxed out Ernie. The consolation even hangs around when James hauls Dean back down to their exam room, when he calls Cindy in—just as a precaution, to make sure that there's no impropriety going on—Dean wouldn't need this explained, if he were a woman getting a breast exam, but since he's not? He has no idea why James needs Cindy in here with them.

When she slinks in the door, she looks just as confused as Dean feels. James scoffs at the both of them, and Dean's warm haze of relief dissipates immediately. Everything's back to feeling all sharp and visceral and thick and hot. Dean's back to squirming in place when James tells Cindy that they're handling Dean's annual physical, and Dean wanted to get some measurements done on his body fat done up. In addition to getting a breast exam, thanks to a recently discovered family history of cancer there. Dean doesn't have a family history of any kind of cancer—none that he knows about, at any rate—but he won't turn down this offer. Not a chance. Not when it's an offer to really have James's hands all over him—not when the air's so thick with tension that Dean could choke on it.

So when James tells him to get out of his shirt, Dean tosses it to the floor without missing a beat. Exposes his whole torso and maybe knocks himself around too hard. He might not need to make all of his flesh jiggle the way he does—he might not need to shake his hips and his belly, or to get James's eyes all up on him—but fuck if it doesn't make Dean choke out a moan in lieu of yelling at James to hurry up and fuck him already.

Cindy tries to muffle her gasp behind her hand, but she doesn't manage it. She doesn't manage to hide the way a rush of pink spills across her cheeks or how her eyes about double in size, either—and a new chill shocks up Dean's spine. One that he sort of recognizes from every time Doctor Sexy's picked on him for eating cupcakes in front of his interns, but still manages to be new. Because it's not just some borderline impersonal throwaway comment, the way that James looks at Dean as he snaps a roll of measuring tape out of his lab-coat's pocket. It's even more personal as he nudges himself into Dean's personal space—gently knocks his hips into Dean's, with just enough room to say it's an accident—and wraps the tape around Dean's stomach.

There's nothing impersonal about this because they're so close to each other, because they're locked in here with Cindy and Dean couldn't escape if he wanted to—and dammit, maybe it's all in Dean's head? Maybe he's just making up the way that James might ever really have a crush on him? But something hot and sticky still twists itself up in every part of Dean, sets them writhing—the deepest pit of his stomach and the muscles in his extremities, the back of his neck and the apples of his cheeks. He bites on his lip—because it's intoxicating, feeling James's fingers tease at him, press into his fat as James adjusts the cold, sticky tape around Dean—and with Cindy watching, listening in? Dean barely manages to keep from getting hard.

Once he's satisfied with the measurement, James whistles again, and announces the result: _Well, you're a good fifty-two inches around now, Nancy. And Cindy? Take that down. Seems like just yesterday you were bragging about almost getting a thirty-inch-waist, doesn't it, Princess_. He _tsks tsks_ , and Dean could just beg him to do it again. Glancing over at Cindy, she looks _so close_ to butting in. She rocks back and forth on her feet, licks her lips, and probably only shuts up because, even without glaring at her, James radiates, _shut up, I know what I'm doing_.

The calipers come out, next—looking all cold metal and hard and bigger than the ones Dean used to see people using around the gym—Dean hasn't even seen them in James's pocket until now. But if he's ever wanted James's hands all over him? He more than gets it. James has to pinch at him to use the things—he drags his free hand down the outside curve of Dean's stomach, then down the curve out in the middle. He splays it over top of Dean's belly button and grips onto the biggest roll of flab on Dean's belly—maybe even the biggest one Dean's whole body has to offer—and he rubs his hand hard into Dean's flesh. Takes his time digging his fingers in, holds there until Dean's worried he might bruise, and only digs the calipers into place when Dean gives up and whines down at him.

He measures the paunch at seventy-six millimeters, and snaps for Cindy to take that down—in the "notes" section of Dean's chart, if she'd be so kind. They repeat this process along Dean's thighs, coming up with a roll of flab that clocks in at fifty-three millimeters. Dean barely hears James announce that because James still has his hands between Dean's legs—as between them as he can get, when they've blown up the way they have and when they grind up against each other—James is still crouching at Dean's feet and groping at Dean's flab. Even when he takes the calipers off, he knocks his hands into all the trembling fat. Dean can't even think straight anymore when James's fingers wrap around his breast, start kneading deep and searching for any lumps. He doesn't find any, and his measurement on the calipers is twenty-eight millimeters, and Dean's head is just spinning with the rush of all this.

With the shock of Cindy reading off a chart that Dean's measurements would put him at about forty percent body fat. Well, forty-and-a-quarter percent, anyway, which is still over-fat and carrying around about a hundred pounds of fat. A hundred pounds of it and a little over.

James sighs as he lets go of Dean's chest. Tells Cindy that she's free to go, and before she's even started inching toward the door, he starts tearing into Dean. Making Dean's insides writhe from what he says and the palpable vitriol behind the words, behind the white-hot glare he locks on Dean's eyes: "A fifty-two-inch waist and over forty percent body fat, Karen—do you have any idea how bad for you this is?"

Dean should have something to say to this. Anything at all to stand up for himself and act like he's not completely losing his head—like it's not completely likely that he'll get rock-hard and end up begging James to let him run for the bathroom. But James picks back up before Dean can get his mind around any words:

"I mean, you must, know what kind of strain you're putting on your body, right?" he snaps. "We both went to medical school and we've both seen our fair share of overweight patients with health complications…"

He crowds further into Dean's personal space, nudging his abs into Dean's paunch—and Dean blushes from how hard James feels against his soft, jiggling flesh. From how much he wants to get them both naked, just to get a more accurate fix on how much smaller, how much more toned, James is than him. He wants to have his hands all over James's muscles and feel James's trim waist bearing down on his own flab.

"I can't imagine you're even helping out the _healthy at every size_ campaign, either, since you got here pretty damn quickly and no thanks to _gorging yourself_ on those fucking cupcakes."

 _God, just make me kneel and beg eat one out of your hands_ —Dean blushes hotter still, not even from James or anything he has to say, but from how his stomach twists and writhes underneath James's cold, hard glare. How he really shouldn't find this so hard, but still wants to beg James for more. To be even crueler to him.

"I'm sorry if I'm being too blunt or hurting your feelings, Nancy, but facts are _facts_ and you _need_ to hear this. Don't you _care_ what the Hell you're doing to yourself like this? What about your practice—do you think any patients will take advice from some Doctor Fat-Ass?"

"I'm not that fat," Dean manages to say, voice squeaking with the effort he has to put into raising it at all. "Maybe I've put on weight, but I'm not… I haven't gained _that_ much, I mean… I'm _not_ that fat!"

" _Not that fat_?" James scoffs with a barking laugh. "I don't think you've been listening to me, Karen. Maybe you've been a little chubby or kind of chunky before? But you're not even _straight-up_ chunky anymore—no. Chunky's what you _used_ to get when you had a few pies too many over Christmas. What you are now, _Dean_? Is _obese_. Pure, jiggling, lard-coated _fat_. Medically speaking, and in terms of all. of. _this_ —"

He sinks his fingers deep into one of Dean's rolls, digging in his nails, actually making it hurt this time. Dean gasps. Whines. Squirms. Nudges back against James's hold without thinking, which just makes him grab Dean that much tighter. And, when James opens his mouth to keep going, Dean yanks him down by the lab-coat lapels. He can't take this teasing anymore.

He jerks James into a hard kiss, all but tries to devour James's mouth, the air in his lungs. The calipers clatter to the floor and James's freed up hand drops to Dean's waist. He doesn't squeeze at Dean—not really, it's more of a gentle embrace; holding Dean just tightly enough to keep him in place—but just that contact sets Dean's head reeling, makes him drag his lips along James's that much harder, and gets him thinking that no, really, he needs to bite on James because that's the best idea ever. James groans into his mouth, and Dean's stomach churns from that alone.

It occurs to Dean that this is something of a dick move—it's probably better to at least let this gorgeous asshole breathe, since he didn't ask before planting one on James—but when they fall apart? When breathing becomes a proper issue and they're both heaving, gasping for breath, James does the damnedest, most unexpected thing Dean never would've thought might happen: he smiles. He chuckles under his breath and drops his forehead, nudging it and his nose into Dean's.

And brushing a hand down Dean's pudgy side, he mutters, "About fucking _time_ , Winchester. And here I thought Masters and Milton were exaggerating when they called you oblivious to flirting."

"Wait-a-minute," Dean spits out, meeting James's eyes and biting back on the urge to just get his mouth around James's again. "That's what… I mean, that wasn't… I thought I was making things up… Like, imagining all the flirting and stuff, I mean."

James laughs, which makes Dean's cheeks flush bright pink again. "Some guy basically eye-fucks you in front of your interns and you think you're making it up?"

Dean's cheeks get hotter still and he has to break eye contact, look down at his belly and at James's hand caressing it instead. "I just didn't…" he says. Sighs from the deepest part of his chest. "I don't even know how _I_ feel about me while I'm like this? While I'm… y'know. Getting pretty fat, I mean? So I just thought? …I just thought you pretty definitely wouldn't want me while I'm…" Dean huffs. Swallows thickly. "All Doctor Fat-Ass and junk."

And James sighs. Keeps his hand on Dean's stomach, raises the other to hook under Dean's double-chin and nudge him back up—back up into a brief, gentle kiss. "I've been into you for ages now, you total idiot," he says. "That's been true at every size you've been. Including this one. So…" Another huff (one that sounds horridly amused). Another little kiss. "However you want to be, I'm good with it. And I'm more than happy to push your limits as a dom—and pick on you all you damn well want—but I will _never_ ask you to change yourself for me, capiche?"

Dean doesn't answer that with words. The only response he has in mind is dragging James down into another kiss—and apologizing afterward for probably getting him sick. But at least James doesn't really mind. At least Dean leaves the clinic some half-an-hour later with a complete physical, a prescription for his antibiotics, paid time off of work—and a date for Friday night.


End file.
